


Apaseh Vs. Parahumans (Appear at Canberra) Summary and Explanation

by Feyyell



Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game), Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Author's Notes are for explanations, CYOA, I didn't know I was a Planeswalker, Mary Sue, Not the Multiple Ending Stories called CYOA, Spoilers, Try to save them all, Why go quadratic if you can go exponential?, summary fic, that escalated quickly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26605816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feyyell/pseuds/Feyyell
Summary: When you deposit a person in the middle of a cave, make them a Planeswalker, but give no instructions, You may or may not begin with a person who has issues. Whether or not it helps, is up to fate.
Kudos: 2





	1. Summary

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note. I am not sure I want Canberra's Simurgh Attack anymore, for two reasons. One, Canberra is quarantined probably due to disease. And I don't see that restriction ever leaving. Two, Weaver already killed Scion before Apaseh knows anything about the World, so this would happen between Worm and Glow Worm. What this means is that Apaseh has failed his primary objective, by the simple expedient of not being there. On the plus side, Behemoth, one of the few that could have stopped him before, probably died before it could have taken enough note of Apaseh to give that information to the other Endbringers. And this kids, is why Lands are necessary for Magic the Gathering. 
> 
> Anywho... I think I will make different fanfiction what if's. One for beginning at Canberra, One for appearing at Canberra.  
> Another for a previous Simurgh Attack.
> 
> Rules: 100 cards, no lands, no legends, some of each color. 1 HP, basically, any damage, I die, without life gain.  
> Not a shard, but hidden until noticed by a cape. Each turn is a week long.  
> The higher any group categorizes the protagonist's threat level, the more likely the antagonists escalate and focus on protagonist.  
> Threats include Scion, Endbringers, Cauldron, S9, Villains.
> 
> Pros: Partial Power Immunity. As long as nothing Endbringer class or more investigates my powers, my powers do not register as a power for the purpose of trump interaction. (1)  
> Lucky Start. While I start in Canberra, I have a cave I can live in, until I am self-sufficient. It provides poorly-nourishing food,  
> and a little light.
> 
> Complications: Quarantined. I am first seen in Canberra, immediately after Simurgh Attack. +2  
> Slaughterhouse is Hiring. As soon as I am deemed a PRT threat level 4 in any category by any group, Jack will find out and be interested. +4  
> Golden Morning. If Scion Ever meets me in person, he will hunt me down. +4  
> Canon Amnesia. I don't know more than what searching the web can do +3.  
> The Cycle begins Anew. Should I be victorious against Scion, Two more will appear, and be extremely interested.
> 
> Objective: Convince Scion to stop the cycle. Then Convince the next 2 to stop the cycle. Bonus Objective: Bonus per saved cape and named NPC. Bonus Objective: Bonus per Endbringer you save. Bonus Objective: Convince the next two to stop
> 
> Apaseh Emptyjee  
> Straight Male  
> 30-ish

Summary: After getting up to full power, and equipping his handful of minions with indestructibility and hexproof, he waits underground, because as nice as the instructions he got on his purpose are, he has no idea if they are accurate, and so wants to verify them.  
He doesn't have to wait long before the Simurgh (A giant woman with too many wings who likes to render people into being bad for the survival of everone else) comes over and starts shrieking, as usual.  
That is enough of a confirmation, that yes, they are real, and enemies, and so tries to get out.  
Unfortunately, his first attempt, sending a minion straight up, is only able to leave the surface AFTER the isolation dome has gone up.  
Remembering the shrieking vision, he decides to have the minion set to find out the specifications of the dome.  
While doing so, this drone is noticed by Dragon, the Tinker AI.  
She worries, but the dome stops it, so she doesn't think about it much.  
Once he has the size of the dome, he starts his minions digging again, to just outside the dome.  
When the drones escape this time, Dragon pulls a full-alert to capes (nickname for powered individuals) and they scramble to take care of this emerging (as they see it) Simurgh legacy, only to find that the drones aren't interested in fighting, and can't be hurt.  
One drone identifies the Simurgh and relays it's general position.  
One known enemy is better than none, and so he negates the Simurgh's invulnerability (Which it doesn't have, it has regeneration instead), and inability to be affected effects, and incidentally do the same for the other two Endbringers (Beings that are really hard to beat, and also have high fatality rates of those who try, and are causing lethal mayhem around the world).  
This worries all three Endbringers, Scion (A crystalline space whale who is hiding most of himself in a pocket dimension. Looks like a golden man, but they are depressed since the loss of their mate) and all the space whales off of Earth, and the Simurgh stops sandbagging, looking for who made it vulnerable.  
In the mean time, Scion, and two space whales start to triangulate the source of this effect.  
Simurgh doesn't have enough time, however, to do anything before Apaseh gains control of it.  
He uses it to find the other two, and register them as his.  
-Known Objective A. Take Care of Known Endbringers. Complete. Approximate time: 6 days from full power.

All groups of capes on Earth, with any access to the internet, are now extremely (worried about)/(interested in) this new cape, who seems to be a high grade Master, Tinker, and Trump. (Meaning, he has powerful minions, and can control Endbringers; He can make powerful machines, and his power can strongly affect other powers)  
He uses the Simurgh, to relocate to an air base, and then puts her on "Fix everything you did to make people crazy" duty.  
But a lot of damage needs to be fixed before anyone trusts anything the Simurgh does, so it takes the shortcut, and first uses the internet and broadcasting services to ensure EVERYONE who can hear her to, in fact hear her, for a time significantly longer than the allowed time before you should quarantine or die, and so renders quarantine issue mute, while she is working on her new orders.  
He uses the drones to find Scion, and has some of his indestructible drones carry him to Scion to speak to him.  
Scion puts two and two together before Apaseh says so much as a word, and teleports to Eidolon (A cape with a known power of choosing powers, and an unknown power of controlling Endbringers), and order-beams Eidolon into activating the other 17 Endbringers, at Scion's previous position.  
Apaseh, uses a second anti-invulnerability pulse, and rapidly lays claim to them as well.  
Two pulses have been confirmed, so this isn't a single use event, and the space whales can now track a small sliver of a galaxy as the source.  
Fighting with Minions is now a stupid idea, so Scion goes berserk, attacking Apaseh with order-beams, only to see the invulnerable drones just taking the damage instead.  
After a week of trying as many combinations of powers and strategies, not involving those that require others, to no avail, Scion is finally tired enough, that Apaseh is able to communicate to him that he doesn't need to continue this cycle.  
He doesn't need to end the life here either.  
I can provide you a solution to your problem, if you don't end the life here.  
-Known Objective B. Convince Scion to stop the cycle as harmlessly as he can. Complete. Approximate time: 8 days (Time dilation may be involved).

It takes a year, but Apaseh has finally got everyone to accept him as World Leader.  
He is a bit cold, but he tries to be fair to all sentients.  
All current problems on earth are split into two categories.  
Problems that can be solved by removing a shard are dealt with by Scion.  
Those that can't, are dealt with by Apaseh.  
His two largest armies are angels and drones.  
Scion has collected all the shards, even Cauldrons', noticed the mockery of life that is his mate, and only quick action kept Scion from going berserk a second time.  
Slaughterhouse Nine was put down early on, and them losing their shards ensured that they quickly lost to Apaseh's Forces.  
He, as part of his agreement to the world to return as many people as he could from death, returned them as well.  
Every person returned this way became fanatically loyal to Apaseh, which was another whole set of sanity issues and moral quandaries about this World Leader.  
Unfortunately, Eden didn't seem to count as one he could raise from the dead, so Scion mourned their loss.  
Technology slowed, because all shards were returned, but power sources, food, and physical power of those under his rule were provided aplenty.  
Worried about the continued existence of humans and Earth, should he die, he restarts investment into space travel, among other things.  
One year later, the two space whales sent to investigate, find the system patrolled by drones.  
The drones alert Apaseh, and he agrees with Scion that Scion shoud try to convince the new whales not to continue the cycle.  
They are having none of it, and both release their Endbringers (20 each).  
Apaseh joins in with a third pulse, that probably confirms the identity of the being that did the first two, and losing their Endbringers, is enough for these two to call for help and go berserk.  
It took a month to wear these prepared space whales down enough to see reason, and the cost of their space-grade communication, but they manage to convince them to stop the cycle and stay.  
-Extra Objective C. Convince the next two to stop the cycle. Partially complete. One solution to counter Entropy, isn't worth discarding other future solutions. It is, however, enough to stick around for, and to regulate conflict for. If necessary, A new world can be made, and those that wish to join in a world of shard-based conflict would be welcome. Approximate time: 2 years to appear, a month to complete.

However, these next two do alert Apaseh, that they called for reinforcements, who might be here in 15 years.  
Because their communication with their kind was cut off by battle, and couldn't be fixed in time, as far as they knew, Apaseh needed to be ready for dealing with any number of space whales probably in 15 or so years.  
With four amounts of shards, among three spacewhales, two of which that still wanted to spread and expiriment with powers, it became necessary to consider how to regulate who gets what powers when.  
One natural consequence of this is a religion worshipping the King and the three Space Whales.  
Apaseh was not amused, and tried to be vocal about his own position.  
The original religions were good enough.  
However, the priests only relented enough so no one in that religion worshipped him, but didn't affect them worshipping the other three.  
With the known defeat of 2 Space Whales, and probably 4, combined with that odd pulse just before they communicated, it is now an unsafe proposition to travel in that area.  
All space whales are to be on alert for that corner of space where that pulse originated from.  
They are not to approach it.  
There haven't been that many losses in the many cycles, but something that can take care of two different groups of whales is not something the entities probably want to encounter.  
It is a low priority, but if we run out of other ideas, then we will band together to try facing this new threat.  
-Extra Objective D. Convince All other Space Whales to stop the cycle. Failure. You were just too effective in the previous objective. You did however ensure a safe-ish world for the forseeable future, and started intergalatic relations with multicidal Space Whales, even if they aren't the rest of the species.


	2. Explanations.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically, a long Author's Note.

Looking at how I play Magic the Gathering, it quickly becomes apparent that were someone to have a power that played like it, you would probably have 4 stages, most especially if you weren't allowed the usual mana-source of lands.  
Stage one: You are effectively a guy that has hallucinations but those hallucinations are separate from the real world enough they probably only hinder the real world, which means they have no other value than low-grade entertainment. Basically, you have a power that only makes acting in the real world harder, for no benefit. This is the stage that lasted the longest, by far. At the given speed of the power, it would take somewhere between 6 months and maybe 5 years.  
Stage two: You can bring hallucinations to reality, but let's face it. At this stage, it is proof of concept. The potential is there, but you can only bring to reality things that are mostly useless anyways. At the given speed of the power, this would probably take an additional month or three.   
Stage three: You are getting somewhere. Now you can slowly build a militia and power source, but a simple untrained gang can still probably take you on. At the given speed, this would be another month, probably.  
Stage four: Mary Sue. Armies? Easy-peasy. Even armies that physics would say create a black hole due to mass. Endbringer? If it doesn't count as a player, it can be yours before it can decide you are enough of a threat to not sandbag. Space Whales? Probably count as Players, so the easier route is defeating them. It is harder to convince them, so there is your challenge. You wish to call MORE entities, to ramp up the challenge (Spoiler Alert: not by much). Easy-peasy. Due to the sheer volume of the potential size of your army (astronomical and scientific notation ain't got nothing on you), and you are still able to affect them, just send a wave of an effect that would worry them. Making their Endbringers Mortal certainly qualifies. However, use it too often, and for that same reason only a few more would show up. It isn't worth the risk of losing too many avenues of stopping the Heat Death of the Universe. Want you, and your minions to have life AND after-life benefits? A little harder, but still within your grasp. Do you want to recruit those who aren't your minions? You can do it En Masse, and you even get to choose whether or not they died first, but if you don't want EVERYONE to know you can do this, the owner of that side needs to be targetable.

Challenge Notes:  
The number of challenges I have to deal with, in order of Severity, is probably, Simurgh, Two Entities, Scion, the 17 spare Endbringers, Behemoth, then Leviathan, then disease Parahumans, then everyone else. Simurgh probably could, if given enough time and reason, synthesize a way to stop me, from one: rendering things mortal, and two allowing myself to affect Endbringer-grade threats, even at Mary Sue levels. Therefore, she needs to be taken out first. Endbringer-level protection, as a baseline, needs to be powerful enough that the Endbringers don't die to the capes, and yet, not enough, that their entity can't defeat them. They also should be weak enough that they can take visible damage, before retreating, because smart subjects would recognise that they aren't damaging them, and so give up. Entities can't have that, because they need conflict to study, and conflict requires both sides to be in a position that they can bring themselves to fight. So, to allow some hope, so that they can bring themselves to fight, the Endbringers need to be damagable, and controllable, but not either so much that the subjects CAN actually win, since Endbringers are a serious investment. Likewise, such a serious investment shouldn't fall into the subject's hands. So, in MtG terms, the best two abilities would be Regeneration and Hexproof on a big creature. To get rid of hexproof, requires using a wide-effect that pretty much affects all enemy players. Since the Entities are (presumably) relatively united in purpose, if one is to count as an enemy, ALL of them are. That means that ALL of them suddenly, for a short (for them) period of time find that their investments, the Endbringers are now controllable, which is dangerous to allow, but manageable, if the one who made them vulnerable isn't coordinating with those the Endbringers are fighting, and the ones they are fighting don't have phenominal luck. But once it is sure that such a pulse is repeatable, it becomes important enough to stop. However, if two known groups are defeated, then another worry arises. If this new problem can take on four entities, and two of them prepared for this anomaly, then it is reasonable to assume that they may be a force they can't deal with. Perhaps it is worth the risk to have sent one group after a second. It isn't however, probably worth the risk to send more than that, since (probably), there aren't that many Entities to begin with, if we factor in time for each cycle, and distance between cycles. 

The 17 spare Endbringers are trouble, since we only know what 2 of them are: One makes time zones, and the other can copy powers. It has to register as a power before it can copy, but if you act fast enough, it won't have time to register your power, since it isn't a shard, and may not be located in the usual place. Even if they do copy it, do they copy your hallucinations as well? If so, then that is a dangerous threat, but again, the power copier was released before it was confirmed that this anti-hexproof pulse was repeatable. And if you act fast enough, even Path to Victory can't stop you from getting the Endbringer. 

But, I suppose you should ask then, what about the 2 Entities? Shouldn't they have been smart enough not to deploy their Endbringers? Now we are getting into a weird area. On one hand- we have probable arrogance. These Entities have been doing this for who knows how long. With each successful cycle, they are sure to become more sure of themselves. Sure they must have had troubles before, but anyone, even in a dangerous and risky environment has a tendency to start being lax with repeated success. It shouldn't have even been in the realms of luck for the catastrophic failure that was Parahumans. They had done this before, were going to a planet of beings that were of no real threat, even if they all united as one, so, this may or may not have been a grade 2 threat to a group who may have been used to grade 4's. And in fact, they were right. They weren't a threat. But one Entity who hadn't got the memo of current cycle practices, had interrupted them. That was the high-grade threat that they failed to factor in. Getting there, they see an Entity, alone, of a recent enough date to understand they leave in 2's. Which, brings questions of "what went wrong?" With that easily answered, and only a slight indication of a threat to the cycle, they see the cycle in ruins. The Entity is there, but there is no conflict, and neither are the shards deployed. Why? Now it becomes a possibility that this Entity itself went wrong. If it is the Entity itself that goes wrong, then they just need to be sure that the wrong Entity can't fight us in an unfair advantage. So, that means Endbringers, but specially tied the Arrivals, so that this Entity can't take them. With that done, and no sign of the previous hexproof-removal pulse, it is dangerous and new ground, but not more dangerous than some disasters these new Entities have dealt with before.

Card Notes:  
I used only old and new cards that, when released, were standard, meaning not casual only. That means they were allowed in legacy and vintage sets. I also didn't use any legendaries, or lands, and I tried to stay away from names. I also used some of each color, and coloress, but I used no multi-colored cards, and all to a total of 100 cards. With all that said, here are my 100 cards.  
1 Empowered Autogenerator  
1 Gemstone Array  
1 Astral Cornucopia  
1 Liquimetal Coating  
1 Twinning Staff  
1 Rings of Brighthearth  
1 Prototype Portal  
1 Mirage Mirror  
1 Isochron Scepter  
1 Doubling Cube  
1 Darksteel Plate  
1 Witchbane Orb  
1 Magistrate's Scepter  
1 Witch's Oven  
1 Mox Tantalite  
1 Strionic Resonator  
1 Swiftfoot Boots  
1 Sculpting Steel  
1 Cold Storage  
1 Chrome Mox  
1 Scythe of the Wretched  
1 Elvish Spirit Guide  
1 Simian Spirit Guide  
1 Mirror Entity  
1 Voltaic Construct  
1 Toymaker  
1 Myr Galvanizer  
1 Coretapper  
1 Ingenious Thief  
1 Mana Echoes  
1 Song of the Worldsoul  
1 Bonds of Mortality  
1 Downdraft  
1 Durable Handicraft  
1 Greater Good  
1 Ulvenwald Mysteries  
1 Mana Reflection  
1 Cream of the Crop  
1 Doubling Season  
1 Unbound Flourishing  
1 Death's Presence  
1 Greed  
1 Dying Wish  
1 Gift of Doom  
1 Malevolent Awakening  
1 Archmage Ascension  
1 Thought Reflection  
1 Treasure Trove  
1 Trail of Evidence  
1 Compulsion  
1 Mind Over Matter  
1 Telekinetic Bonds  
1 Aggravated Assault  
1 Breath of Fury  
1 Burning Anger  
1 Captive Flame  
1 Electropotence  
1 Fiery Emancipation  
1 Goblin Bombardment  
1 Fervor  
1 Vessel of Volatility  
1 Boon Reflection  
1 Cathars' Crusade  
1 Angelic Chorus  
1 Proper Burial  
1 Words of Worship  
1 True Conviction  
1 Divine Visitation  
1 Cradle of Vitality  
1 Seal of Primordium  
1 Efficient Construction  
1 Quest for Ancient Secrets  
1 Dispersing Orb  
1 Lay Claim  
1 Font of Agonies  
1 Dual Casting  
1 Revenge of Ravens  
1 Unspeakable Symbol  
1 Haunted Crossroads  
1 Pull from Eternity  
1 Second Harvest  
1 Reiterate  
1 Songs of the Damned  
1 Machinate  
1 Peek  
1 Battle Hymn  
1 Beacon of Immortality  
1 Krosan Reclamation  
1 Behold the Beyond  
1 Beacon of Unrest  
1 Apex of Power  
1 Inner Fire  
1 Devout Invocation  
1 Archangel's Light  
1 Commune with the Gods  
1 Ghastly Conscription  
1 Finale of Revelation  
1 Cruel Tutor  
1 Grim Tutor  
1 Contract Killing

If you have any other questions, please let me know.


End file.
